Mom Bod

Work became mostly excruciating for you. Never mind the commute downtown and back up on a hot, sweaty, crowded subway where people only intermittently offered you their seats, but you could only sit in your chair for maybe 30 minutes at a time before you got crampy or had to use the bathroom. Gamely, you stuck it out for as long as you could. But once you hit 37 weeks, you threw in the towel. I couldn't say I blamed you. Granted, I was still working but I liked having you home, resting, keeping your mind clear and taking it easy.

Of course given a bit of time to collect yourself, you immediately started nesting, doing all sorts of odd things around the house and cleaning up more than I'd ever seen you do before. I joked that if I'd known this was what it took to get you to clean the house, I would have knocked you up more often. You didn't find that quite so amusing.

Irregardless, you tended to work in fits and starts—you'd go frenetically for an hour or so, then get exhausted and pass out on the bed. Or the couch. Or wherever you found a comfortable spot to lie down. Yesterday, I caught you peacefully snoozing on the floor in our daughter's room, smiling contentedly.

You'd been home for a week when I had a big work event. You'd wanted to come with me since I was giving a speech but as the day drew closer, we kind of decided to just play it by ear depending on how you were feeling. I'd come home from the office early to get myself ready and of course when I arrived, you were planted in bed. But you said you'd pull it together.

At around 5, you got a rush of energy and popped out of bed and got going, singing idly to yourself the whole time. You only had a couple of things you could fit into, and you showed them both off for me. The first was a kind of a slinky black number with thin spaghetti straps over the shoulders and a deep, plunging neckline. I thought you looked stunning, but you felt too cleavagey and decided on the other option, a yellow, white and black floral print dress that was a bit more form-fitting, but also not quite so revealing.

You got your makeup on just so, straightened your hair, and, yes, it took you a while, but you announced yourself ready to rock and roll at 6:30.

I've always liked having you with me at these work things, generally because you make me feel at ease among the stuffed shirts and bland personalities that are generally in attendance. And you're always very talkative. So I've always been known as the one with the "fun" wife. Tonight, of course, I'm the one with the fun and enormously pregnant wife. I couldn't be filled with more pride to have you with me looking the way you do.

You have always had a unique talent for glamming yourself up and drawing focus when you enter a room. It seemed heightened on this night. You didn't quite feel it yourself, but I absolutely entered the room with the prom queen.

The cocktail hour was sort of a drag for us since you weren't drinking and I wasn't either, mostly out of solidarity for you, but it seemed like we were repeatedly getting approached by my co-workers asking you about your pregnancy. You were your usual loquacious and funny self, and we played off of each other as we tend to do, making all variety of pregnancy-related jokes and generally entertaining people. One woman asked when you were due, you replied "Any moment, so don't get too close. It might get messy!"

Standing around talking to people was starting to wear you out so eventually we went and sat down for the banquet. Later in the evening, I got called up to the podium to say what I had to say and I decided to go off the cuff a bit. I opened my speech by asking you to stand up, which you did, and I pointed you out and said that since it was such a popular topic of discussion, I'd just answer everyone's questions now by saying that it's a girl, and you're due in two weeks, and no, we don't have a name picked out yet! And you stood there holding your belly and laughing hysterically as everyone applauded. I winked at you and blew you a kiss before going on with the rest of the speech.

The evening ended and of course everything went wonderfully. You were totally beat by the end of the night so we excused ourselves quickly and got a cab home. You did your best to try and stretch out and relax, and you sort of positioned yourself so you could lean across the seat, half on top of me. You were sort of breathing heavy and looked pained. I asked if you were feeling OK and you said you were fine, but she was shifting a lot and basically sitting on your bladder all night and you just felt very uncomfortable. You wanted to try and position yourself so you could stretch your belly out a little bit. I reached down around your belly and gave you a gentle push, in the hopes that maybe that would get her to move. You said it helped a little bit, but mostly you just wanted me to keep my arms around you and hold you while you buried your head in my chest. I kissed your head and thanked you for being there with me tonight. I feel very lucky to have such a kickass wife.

We got home and all you wanted to do was just peel your dress off and crawl into bed. You started taking your makeup off and started telling me about all the people there who just kept staring at you, or staring at your belly. You thought it funny. You got up and stood in front of your full-length mirror, kind of admiring yourself in your dress.

I told you that you were an absolute fucking knockout as I stood behind you and helped you take the dress off, unhooking the clip behind your neck and unzipping it down, pulling it off and tossing it in your closet. You then pulled off your stocking and stood back up and looked at yourself in the mirror. You touched your belly and smiled, and told me you'd really grown to love your body in this state. For as miserable as you've felt the past few weeks, you said, you wouldn't give up having this experience for anything. I said that your pregnancy has been so much more wonderful than I ever could have dreamed. I put my arm around your belly—as much as I was able to do so given your size—and started gently kissing the back of your neck.

You sighed and leaned your head back against mine and put your hand over mine as I rubbed small circles on your belly. I slowly slid my left hand around you and started making more circles. I got fully aroused and my cock was brushing up against the lower part of your back. You giggled a little bit. I asked if you were feeling frisky. You said that all of a sudden, you were. I slowly moved my right hand down, underneath your belly and down into your crotch, where I started rubbing the outside of your vagina. You gasped and shivered. I curled up my fingers and slid them in your vagina, which was already super moist. I gently flicked your clitoris. You moaned and immediately, your knees gave out and I had to catch you and hold you. You laughed and said maybe we should just move this over to the bed.

So I walked you over, supporting you, and laid you down on your back. I propped you up slightly and undid your bra, allowing your full, dark-nippled breasts to swing out. I then pulled off my undershirt and boxers, leaving us both naked. I asked if you wanted me to continue what I was doing. You bit your lip and nodded yes. I resumed fingering you, while kissing you, beginning on your lips, and then working down your neck, over your breasts, which were dripping with colostrum, and down to your belly.

Knowing this would be one of the final times I'd get to truly ravish you, I took my time enjoying your firm, full, round belly, kissing it, licking it, biting it gently and generally kneading it with my free hand to feel its firmness and fullness. You cooed with delight and ran your hand through my hair while I did this. I started sliding my fingers in your vagina a little more vigorously, and you begged me to keep going, to not stop. You were hot and slick and you started rubbing your belly with both hands as you drew yourself to climax.

At that point, you pulled my hand away and asked me to stick it in you. I stood up next to the bed and pulled your legs down so they were hanging off the side. I then opened your legs and began slowly rubbing the head of my cock around the lips of your vagina. You again begged for me to put it in you, and so I did. You were prone, on your back with your belly sticking straight up. I put both hands firmly on your belly to support myself as I made love to you. I leaned over to try to kiss you some more, but that wasn't happening with your belly very much in the way. I had to settle for the next best thing, which was to simply kiss your belly. And I did. I kissed it, nuzzled it, rubbed it with my nose and buried my face in it as much as I was able to given how firm it had become.

I was being very gentle given your state but you asked for a little more rough and I obliged. Of course it didn't take me very long to finish, though I did my best to try and last as long as possible. To aid you, I began massaging your clitoris with my thumb, which made you howl with delight. I resumed gripping my hands on your belly and pounding away until I came, after which you gently moaned and smiled and I basically collapsed in bed next to you, my heart absolutely pounding.

Our minds are racing and yet we don't say a word as I lie in bed, spooning you as I did so many months ago when you could barely tell that our baby was growing inside you. Now, I have my hand on an absolutely massive, full-term pregnant belly. I feel it tense up slightly, then release. You wince. It's another Braxton-hicks. A reminder that this is coming to an end soon. It was piercing and beautiful, making love to you this way, and maybe a little bittersweet because we can't be quite sure if this will be the last time we do it before you give birth.

These last joyful moments of your pregnancy continue to be tinged with feelings of anxiety. Everything—life as we know it—is about to change for us in a major way. It's a feeling of excitement and fear and it's kind of overwhelming. I want us to enjoy what time there is left of this period as much as possible. So I lie in bed, holding you, holding our baby inside of you. We're completely naked and absolutely vulnerable as you drift off to sleep in my arms. I tousle your hair and kiss your neck as I drift off to sleep myself.

Epilogue

We're finally a family. Our little girl, who we named Sarah, was born on July 26th. Actually, at 9 pounds, 5 ounces, she wasn't very little at all. But she is perfect, a little mixture of both of us. Your light brown hair. My mouth. She smiles a lot. As though she knows how much we longed for her before she finally came.

Still, it wasn't an easy journey. The last week or so of pregnancy was pretty uncomfortable for you. Everything swelled up and hurt, and your belly got this red, itchy rash underneath your belly button. I did what I could to help you, including rubbing cream on your belly, giving you foot and leg massages, and basically waiting on you hand and foot. You were appreciative. Cranky, but appreciative.

It was late in the afternoon on the 25th when your water broke. You'd been feeling very crampy, kind of in your lower back, and you got up to use the bathroom, and...sploosh. We looked at each other and smiled. Kind of an excited, but nervous smile. It was time.

I called your doctor and she told me to keep track of your contractions to make sure they were regular and progressive and to wait until you were 8-10 minutes apart before we went to the hospital. So, we sat and waited. You were having contractions, but they were kind of all over the place. 6 minutes, then 12, then 9, then 10, then 5...and not being totally sure what to do, we went to the hospital anyway at around 8pm.

Because you weren't technically in active labor, we ended up sort of sitting around while they prepped a room for us for a while. It was probably only 45 minutes or so, but it felt like 3 hours. Your contractions seemed to be leveling off a bit and becoming more regular. By time we got into a room and the doctor examined you, you were already dilated 4cm. So you were getting somewhere.

But for a few hours, the contractions didn't speed up. It got later in the evening and while you were contracting and the baby's vitals were OK, it didn't seem like you were dilating any further. Mostly you just felt uncomfortable. I rubbed your back—your lower back seemed particularly sore—and your shoulders, gave you ice chips and whispered to you how great a job you were doing and how much I loved you. You might have been ready to rip my lips off at that point but you kept your cool.

It was after midnight when things finally started to pick up. I'd spent the better part of an hour getting you up and out of bed so you could walk around in the hopes that it might open you up a bit more. It seemed to work. The contractions started getting more frequent and very quickly, you reached 8cm, then 10...and it was go time.

It seemed a little crude, the doctor in between your legs and a nurse standing by, while I held your hands as you began to push. I wasn't sure where I should keep my focus—mostly I looked at you but I wanted to see what was happening as you pushed. After the second big push, I looked down and I could clearly see the top of our baby's head start to appear. I told you I could see it—you said you felt it—and that somehow gave you this burst of energy and excitement, and with one more push she spilled right on out, head, shoulders and all.

The warmth I felt as the doctor handed her to you is something I'll never, ever forget. I didn't cry—neither did you—we just felt very warm, and very happy. Later, after everyone had left and things calmed down, I climbed in the bed with you as you started to breastfeed her. We didn't need to say anything. Just that look. You leaned your head on my shoulder, and I leaned my head on yours and we watched her nurse away. This was the result of our crazy nine-month journey.